I heard a Hymn

“The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised his baton. In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart…The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.”

— Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark, pp. 2,3

I heard music in a word

There’s not much difference between music and magic.

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Modern Music and Ancient Conversion Stories

I quite enjoyed this music video by Regina Spektor.  However, and this may just be cause I have Bede on the brain, did the windows and the birds remind anyone else of the conversation from Book II of the Ecclesiastical History where King Edwin is debating conversion with his advisors?  One of his advisors offers this rationale for converting.

The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another. Whilst he is within, he is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant.

I love this passage because it is so Germanic in its outlook, and now we get it paired with spunky music!

Music in a Word, or vise versa

We have danced around the topic of music at many points in the past but never really explored it in full.  While I do not have the time to do so now, here is an interesting article about the ability of music to convey truth when words cannot and its role in ecumenical discussions.

This Too Shall Pass

This sums up my life about now.

The Song Writer Cannot Hear

"I will take fate by the throat; it will not bend me completely to its will." Beethoven

Strange Music

Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,  

But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back,  

Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret, 

Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.  

In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath e'er let fall, 

In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all;  

Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,  

Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name.  

Not as mine, my soul's annointed, not as mine the rude and light  

Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight;  

Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar,  

Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.  

But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once,  

Hoary time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.  

But I will not fear to match them-no, by God, I will not fear,  

I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear. 

--G. K. Chesterton

Music in a word

Music is the vernacular of the human soul.--Geoffry Latham

Will there be music or will there be war?

I am sorry for the length of time between this and my last post, but I too suffer from a lack of leisure time. In our current culture the absence of work is looked down upon. It seems to be the thought that if one is not working then one is not being productive. This is completely false. As Robin Hood has stated "leisure is more than a state of not working, it is an attitude of the mind and a condition of the soul which allows people to look on the world in wonder and wonder in turn leads to contemplation." If our world is to change people must think. They must contemplate on their existence, on the world around them, and on ideas and ideals. This is part of the very essence of being alive, of taking each day as it comes.

This brings to mind, at least it brought to my mind, music. The very word has a passion and fire, yet also a sense of peace and understanding. It is alive, and ever changing. A force so powerful that it can change history, create wars and revolutions. Music most perfectly realizes the endless yearning of the soul. It is so powerful that it can never be explained. To one never having heard of it, it would be impossible for one to convey the passion, the life, the moods of music. Music is one of the highest forms of art, giving inspiration to anyone who has the ears to hear. If one does not have time for leisure, if one does not think, not contemplate, then they will never hear, they will never even be able to hope to understand.

As I have said previously my lack of leisure time has effected my posting. Again it causes me to barely even start to explore a topic that even the most powerful and insightful minds have great difficulty in properly conveying the meaning of, for that is the power of music. Therefore I say we use this as an introduction that has simply opened the floor to music.